


Promises

by peggy_hamilton



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:22:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22191004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peggy_hamilton/pseuds/peggy_hamilton
Summary: Leckie meets Vera as a war nurse
Relationships: Vera Keller/Robert Leckie
Kudos: 2





	Promises

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on my tumblr justthinkingofwaystoavoidbusses
> 
> original request: Could you maybe write a story where Leckie meets Vera as a nurse when he’s off the battlefield? - anon

Leckie was tired of this fucking war. He just wanted to be home, he wanted to sit in his own room on his own bed in front of his own typewriter, with Vera across the street. Instead he was stuck on yet another nondescript island in the pacific he had long since forgotten the name of fighting in a pointless war and in a hospital no less. Well, actually, he was just about to leave said hospital.

He was used to the heat out with his company, but the air in the hospital was stifling and made him want to crawl out of his own skin. He had been lying down too long, dormant for too long, his legs shook as he walked past faceless nurses and soldiers who ignored him just the same. The only familiarity he had now was the mud and the sand and the trees.

Or so he thought.

He passed by an open door, it took a few seconds for his idle brain to catch up with what he had just seen but he was certain. It was her. She was here, that the familiar curve of her face, he’;d know her anywhere. Leckie backpedalled, stood still in the door as he watched her.

She was dressed in a nurses uniform, folding up some bed sheets or bandages he didn’t know, he was too focused on the fact that it was in fact her. The letters he had never sent suddenly seemed a hundred times heavier in his pocket, how long had he been in this hospital and not noticed her. Did she know he had been here? Did she care?

“Vera,” he spoke without realising.

Vera looked up, not used to being referred to by her first name after spending so much time as a nurse. A soldier stood in the door, muddied and beaten and a glaze in his eyes. Who was he and how did he know her? She stepped forward and a gasp caught in her throat. “Bob Leckie.” Her neighbour, the boy who had lived across from her her whole life. The boy who had always had a spark for life in his eyes when he smiled at her, like he had when she had seen him before he shipped off, now looked aged and beaten down. “I didn’t know you were here,” she stated, walking over to him.

“I didn’t know you were here,” his mouth formed the words before his brain could make sense of the situation.

“I saw some news reels in the pictures and I thought I should help out, do my bit. I signed up to be a nurse, so they sent me here.”

Leckie made an acknowledging sound in the back of his throat, trust his luck to find the girl of his dreams out here in this godforsaken wasteland. He suddenly had the ironic thought that it served well he had never sent those letters considering she wouldn’t have gotten them anyway. The thought that Vera was at home and safe had been getting him through the war but now she was out here, she was in danger even away from the battlefield and he was powerless to protect her. “Do you like it?”

“It’s not the best,” she smiled wryly. “It’s better than being stuck home with my mother.”

“That I believe,” he laughed, his mind catching up to him and clearing the fog that had clouded it for the first time in days, weeks.

“I never heard from you,” she said, remembering that he had said he would write her when they had spoken at the church.

“I did write letters.”

She raised an eyebrow, “I never got any.”

“I didn’t send them,” he admitted sheepishly.

“Do you have them?” Hesitantly he nodded. “Can I read them?”

He licked his lips, the letters seemed to burn against him. “Not yet. If we both get out of here then you can. If I’m honest I never intended for you to read them, I didn’t think I’d get out of this place so it wouldn’t matter. I still might not.”

She nodded, trying to hide her disappointment. “Very well. Though, you must promise that when we get home you’ll allow me to read them.”

Leckie smiled at her, “Okay. I promise.”

Vera perked up and smiled, “Excellent. I’d love to stay and chat but I’ve got duties. You should come by if you can, or write me. And make sure you send them, I believe I’m stationed here for the remainder of what’s to come anyway.”

He nodded, it was the least he could do and the way she smiled at him made his heart skip a beat. He would be coming back here any chance he got if it meant he got to see her, maybe having her here wasn’t such a problem after all. “I can do that. I’ll see you around, Vera.”

“You as well, Bob,” she smiled, touching his arm lightly as she made her way past him and down the hall. He watched her go with a practically love struck expression, he walked out of the hospital feeling much better than he did when he had walked in there and it was under no circumstances due to the the medicine they had given him.


End file.
